Fear is an interesting beast. There are times when fear stands as our foe, as it drives us to react hastily and sometimes keeping us from doing the things that we want to do.
There are other times when it acts our friend, teaching us that there are times in life when we do need to be "afraid"--in order to keep our distance from something in which will hurt us.
More often than not, I find that fear causes more harm than healing. There have been many people who I met with told of their stories of how they wish they would have attempted a task, started a relationship or applied for a job years and months before they actually did. Fear kept them from reaching out to others, from asking for help and from revealing to their loved ones who they were underneath the mask.
Fear can be an interesting beast.
When I began my work in helping people overcome their fears, I began with a cognitive approach. For those of you know have done some research in the area of methodology, you will notice that many hold onto the belief that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Exposure Therapy are the gold standard to treating issues such as trauma and anxiety. And while I still believe and work with models such as these, I also find myself learning towards another approach--Narrative Therapy. With the Narrative approach, we look at the problem (fear, anxiety, panic-attacks) in light of our surroundings, our upbringing and our own relationship with the people and world around us. In other words, we take a bird's eye view of the problem considering our own narrative in which we live.
We usually begin this type of work by separating our own identity from the issue. Narrative Therapy calls this "externalizing the problem". With fear, we come to understand that it is an external presence instead of an internal force. For those of us who are typically logic-driven, this is a bit of a jump as we are beginning to imagine new possibilities; mainly apart from the reality in which we live. Many of us grew up believing that the world worked a certain way and to think and say otherwise would be a literal choice of insanity.
And while there is some truth to the sentiment, there is also a possibility that for much of our lives, we could have been wrong about a thing or two... primarily the things in which we fear.
The more that we dream of the new possibilities (usually the more positive ones which would exist with a diminished sense of fear), we actually begin telling an alternate story about ourselves.
Instead of the woman who refused to move in fear of failure, we tell a story of a woman who stepped out in courage... and succeeded! Instead of a young man who was continually controlled by drug abuse because of unresolved pain, a story of a talented entrepreneur who found meaning in his demons, ventured out into business and is now raising two healthy young children. Although for years, this approach was considered "post-modern" and snake oil, the empirical evidence is building that there is more than one way to overcome our fear.
But it begins by telling our story. The whole story, and not just the problem saturated one.
It is a story in which we share our pain. A story in which we name of our fears.
A story in which we dream of a new reality.
And more often than not, when we allow ourselves to do this, we end up stepping out of one story... a story ruled by fear and "what ifs"... and into a new and brighter future.
Until Next Time,